12 August 1994

A dry day, a white Rolls Royce and a country church. A hotel by a lake. Family and friends cleaned up and dolled up. We all had jobs to do.

The Brother had to keep his hair in place, Davy B had to look after Herself. Lorraine was reading, J & S had to carry things, while the Incredible Singing Cousins were out in force. H and Dawnriser had to wear shiny frocks and pose beside me. I got to be the bride.

bride, family and hat

A lot has changed since then. Herself and Lorraine are gone, as is the Brother’s hair. Others have left us, some are unwell now, others still we hardly see.

Long gone, too, is the marriage that brought us all together. We grew apart, fell apart and lost our way.

20 years on we are not what we might have been. But we re-found our friendship. We managed to remember that we cared about each other, before we lost it all.

There is a twist of magic to the place, but more of a punch to guts that hopefully grounds one.

Yes, we look back and we see changes. So many have problems, myself included, in our inability to anticipate change -we think we have a handle on it then melt down when we discover we don’t . To quote Cat Stevens, “Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world”.